When Marriage Turns to Marah

The nation of Israel had waited for this day. Moses had gone before Pharaoh boldly asking him to let him go so that the people of God could make a three days journey in the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD (Ex.3:18,5:3, 8:27). A three day journey out of Egypt was their dream. If they could just go THREE DAYS, then everything would be great. Their problems would sink behind them and they would have peace as they walk with God in freedom!
Exodus 3:18, Now let us go, we beseech thee, three days fourney into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.
Exodus 5:3, Let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God…
Well, here they were three days journey out of Egypt and what do they find: no water and then bitter waters!
Israel waited a long time for this moment. God miraculously delivered them from Egypt by slaying the firstborn of all in Egypt, and He amazingly opened up the Red Sea to deliver them. They travel three days and hit a wall. They were three days away from the greatest deliverance of their lives and they forget their song of joy and now they are bitter. They are thirsty and the waters of Marah of bitter. Something they legitimately need is lacking: water. The bitter water affects their spirit and they become as bitter as the water.
I want us to apply the rapid turn of events: from the songs of deliverance to the sighs of disappointment. I can see a great parallel in this passage to the passages of marriage.
? Deliverance from singleness! No longer will I be lonely! No longer will I be sexually frustrated! No longer will I lack someone with whom to share my dreams and go after my goals!
? The Songs of the wedding and honeymoon: What joy and excitement of that day and what relaxation and bliss was the honeymoon.
? Then the reality of everyday life sets in. Children come, and disappointment grows. Bitterness sets in and marriage turns to Marah.
This is a real test in our spiritual lives. “There he proved them” (v.25). This means to try or to test. Marriage will test the truth of our commitment and the validity of our word. Do you remember your vow? Do you mean what you vowed before God and man? If you cannot keep this vow you made, then you are not going to be worth much to God.
I want us to see how we may deal with the disappointments of life from this passage. How can we move our marriage on from the bitterness of Marah? How can we move from bitterness, to sweetness, to fulness, as the nation of Israel is able to do?
1. Bitterness, v.22-24
A. The REASON for Bitterness:
1. UNFULFILLED Expectations, v.22
Bitterness easily sets in when great expectations fill the heart. They were expecting to go three days journey and have a great spiritual experience and instead what do they find: NO WATER! Their basic needs were not satisfied. An absolute necessity for survival in a desert was no where in sight. What a shocking letdown!
Israel expected a great spiritual experience and instead at first they find NO WATER. In other words, the basic life giving provision was lacking. Many think they will find all they need when they get married and instead they find:
NO LOVE, NO TRUST, NO RESPECT, NO COMMUNICATION, NO APPRECIATION, NO SUBMISSION.
The absolute necessities for marriage satisfaction are often missing and that leads to bitter disappointment.
This reminds me of how people set themselves up for disappointment in their marriages. Their expectations are so high, their disappointment and bitterness becomes great. One of the greatest reasons for failure in marriage is the storybook expectation with which we enter marriage. They put their expectation in man and not in God:
Psalm 62:5, My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him.
A woman expects the man will love and cherish her and listen to all of her problems. A woman expects a warm, listening, caring husband. A man expects to get the trust, approval, and appreciation of his wife each moment of the day.
A woman expects a man will treat them with tenderness, gentleness, and understanding. A man expects to be someone’s hero, the proverbial knight in shining in armor.
Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want, then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that!
Marriage is anticipating a Hawaiian vacation and landing in the Swiss Alps!
People with high expectations for something great often are disappointed and left bitter.
Gary Smalley writes in “If Only He Knew” that he asked a college girl what kind of man she would like to marry. “I would like for him to able to tell jokes, sing and dance, and stay home at night.” “
You don’t want a husband, you want a television set,” he said.
Have you found no refreshment in your marriage? We should not be too difficult on the Israelites until we have done three days of hard walking in a dry wilderness without any water. How many of us would be complaining? A little while later they find water but it is BITTER. From no water to bitter water! The very thing they needed to survive out there in the wilderness was lacking. Does your marriage lack the absolute necessities for survival: love and submission? When we lack the real necessities, we tend to get bitter. Does that describe your marriage today?
Just as the amazing joy of God’s great work of deliverance quickly turned into bitterness, so marriage can quickly reveal the problems that lurk in our hearts. How quickly the joy of marriage can turn into the bitterness of Marah. Remember this, just as Israel was in God’s will, so a marriage can be experiencing bitter moments and you can be married in the will of God. Do not begin to think, “I must have gotten out of God’s will, that is why my marriage has so much tension and conflict. All we do is argue, I must not be in God’s will!” Just because you are having problems over the basic principles in marriage, do not assume you are out of God’s will.
2. Another reason for their bitterness was they UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTIES.
They did not expect and were not prepared for the problem they were facing. They had never faced it before. Israel had never before had to deal with this problem of getting water for themselves. In Egypt it was not a problem. So many problems in marriage are not only something we did not expect, they are problems we have never before had to face. We have not been trained to deal with the problems in marriage. All we need to get married is a fuzzy feeling in our heart and a license that requires no training!
When people get married they do not expect to be lonely, to not be loved or respected. They are not prepared for the sacrifices necessary to be happily married.
Isn’t it ironic that a plumber’s license requires four years of training and a marriage license requires nothing but a man and a woman (still!) and maybe a blood test. More damage can be done by a marriage license than a plumbing license, too!
B. The RESULT of bitterness: Murmuring!
Bitterness resulted in MURMURING against the leader: When there is bitterness in a relationship, it leads to complaining. What do you do when the waters of marriage turn bitter? Don’t curse it, nurse it, or rehearse it.
Now I must say something: men do not like to hear their wife complain. It is a real turn off and it sends men into whatever cave they retreat. It will send them to the TV, to the computer, to the garage, the golf course, out hunting, or wherever they go to get space. I am not saying it is right, but that is what often happens. Men, realize that it is human nature for the follower to complain to the leader. Do not think, “There is no one as ungrateful, as complaining, and nagging as MY wife. If I had a wife like so-and-so, then I could be happily married.” I say to you: you are deceived!
Ladies, when you are discouraged and disappointed, you must resist the desire to curse, nurse your hurt, and rehearse it continually in your mind. You may have something very real bothering you just as Israel had a real problem with thirst. You must learn to lovingly appeal to your husband, encourage him in areas of his strength so that he will respond to your appeal. How can you do that? Know that God has allowed this affliction in your life. You must ACCEPT the AFFLICTION from God. Do not think about returning to a life of singleness! Do not throw a drop of the water away, and do not move on from the bitter waters. Do not ignore the bitter waters, they can be changed to sweetness. What many people do with their bitterness is ignore it and try to move on from it without healing the bitterness. Bitterness ignored does not heal. It becomes worse.
Rather, let God reverse it! Usually, the complaining is done against the leader. The head of the home must have strong shoulders to deal with disappointed followers.
Notice what Moses does with the murmuring of the people. How does Moses respond to the murmuring? He listened to it and brought their complaint to the Lord. He learned to cast his care upon the LORD.
2. Sweetness, v.25,26
How can the bitterness become sweetness?
A. Prayerfulness!
He cried unto the LORD.
“Prayer is talking to God in utter dependence through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Moses humbly went to the Lord to ask God for deliverance. He did not rebuke the people and say, “You are just ungrateful after all I have done for you!” Here is where the loving leadership of the husband will be tested. Men must love their wives even when they are angry, mad, and/or complaining.
He could have tasted the water and invalidated their complaint: “It doesn’t taste that bad!”
Moses LISTENED GENTLY to their complaint and carried their complaint to the LORD. Moses knew that the situation was beyond his control. He could not supply water for two million people, but he knew God could.
Moses prayed because he knew that he could not fix it himself. Moses prayed to the Lord rather than giving a sermon to the disappointed followers. When our wives complain to us, men, let me give you a winning way: do not answer their complaint by arguing against their feelings. Refrain from giving your speech, and just give them your shoulder. We like to give our:
? I can fix your feeling speech, or
? You should not feel that way speech, or
? I got to get off the hook speech because it is not my fault!
Do not say, “That is ridiculous! The water is not bitter! You are so nit-picky!” Do not take the murmuring personally. When we do, we feel blamed and we try to give our “It’s not my fault speech.” When we argue against our wives feelings, we create more bitterness and make a bad situation worse.
When our wives complain, PRAY. Go to God and cast your care upon Him.
With all of the amazing promises related to prayer, it is amazing we do not pray more:
John 14:13,14: And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
John 15:7: If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.
1 John 3:22: And whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
1 John 5:14,15: And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us, and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever he ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
1 Peter 5:7, Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you!
B. Forgiveness!
As he prayed, the LORD showed him a tree. A piece of wood was within sight, and through prayer God showed him that tree ought to be cast into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. Do not miss that this was a miracle as great as the opening up of the Red Sea. The lesson here is the solution is in sight, but you will not see it if you wallow in bitterness, self-pity, and selfishness.
The solution is not in divorce, secular counseling, or other things. What is the solution of bitterness? FORGIVENESS. When bitterness enters into a marriage, that marriage needs the miracles of forgiveness. You must put the Savior in your sight and He will show you the solution to your problem.
God showed him a tree. This tree reminds me of another tree called the cross. I believe that the tree here can be applied to the cross which speaks of the sacrifice of our Savior that forgives our sins. The key to overcome bitterness and see the sweetness of your walk return is the forgiveness. Apply the cross to your life. Apply the cross of Christ to your bitterness, let the blood of Christ forgive you of your sins so you can forgive one another. The Gospel is the greatest miracle in all history. That the God-man died upon the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead is a miracle, and we must apply this miracle to our own hearts and then to our marriages.
Forgiveness is the superglue of life!
Matt.5:23,24; Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Matt.6:14,15; For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Mark 11:25; And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
Eph.4:31,32, Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Col. 3:19; Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.
C. Obedience:
God makes for His people a statute and an ordinance at Marah. Do not despise those “Marah moments” in your life, because it is there that God speaks to you, and God’s commands and promises are made clear. Obey God! In your personal life, be holy. In your daily life, be disciplined, in your church life, be faithful.
God also does the miracle at Marah. God did not do any miracles at Elim, but at Marah. When you look to God at those times of great bitterness, God can do a miracle in your marriage.
God tells them that if they will diligently listen and then faithfully do what He commands, that he will not put the diseases upon them that He had put upon the Egyptians. There is a disease prevalent in the world that has made deep inroads into the church, and it is called divorce. God reveals Himself as the LORD that healeth thee. He can heal our hearts from the hurt of bitterness. He can heal the memory from the hurt of the past.
When you decide to obey God, you will have sweetness in your life and marriage. Obey God in all areas! Your walk with Him, what you say, where you go; your worship, your money, your children.
John 14:15, If ye love me keep my commandments.
John 14:21, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 15:10; if ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my live.
3. Fulness, v.27
They came to Elim and there were twelve wells, or springs, of water and 70 palm trees. You could call this place “Palm Springs!” Again, they would not have come to Elim if they did not overcome their bitterness. Do you know how far Elim is from Marah? Five miles. Most people never enjoy the fulness of marriage because they quit too soon.
May the Lord open your eyes to see the solution to the unresolved areas of bitterness in your life and marriage. May God give you His wisdom to overcome disappointment!